


The Cliche of a Broken-Down Elevator

by aces



Category: Invisible Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She <em>liked</em> Darien and Bobby. They weren't supposed to unnerve her so much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cliche of a Broken-Down Elevator

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime after "Three Phases of Claire" but is non-spoilery for that episode or any other.

"Hobbes. Hobbes! Bobby, would you _please_ calm _down_?!" Claire was about ready to screech. She was afraid she was already screeching, but really, _one_ of them at a time was enough, two of them together was too much.

"This is not good this is not good this is _so_ not _good_, Keep! We're stuck in here, we can't get out, and I do _not_ like enclosed spaces! Especially enclosed spaces this fricking small! We've gotta—"

"Hobbes." Darien stopped pacing (two steps, back and forth, as far away from the other two as he could manage, which wasn't very far), took two strides over to his partner, put his hands on Bobby's shoulders, and looked down at him. "Hobbes." His voice was quiet, firm, the way Claire only usually heard it when he was trying to persuade her to do something she _really_ didn't want to do.

She slid down against the wall to the floor, watching them. Bobby was visibly relaxing under Darien's hands, and the partners were staring at each with other with an intensity Claire found uncomfortable from this short distance and probably would have found uncomfortable even from a larger distance.

"It's okay," Darien said, eyes as clamped as hands.

"Fawkes—"

"Hobbes," and there was a warning note in Darien's voice, and they were _completely_ ignoring their other companion in the broken elevator. Claire would have felt insulted, but currently she was grateful not to be under that close scrutiny. She'd never liked direct eye contact very much. And she would never admit how much Darien unnerved her when he used direct eye contact on her to get what he wanted.

"We're gonna get out of this, Hobbes," Darien continued. "You just need to stay cool. Okay? Just stay cool."

"Easy for you to say," Hobbes muttered. "You don't have claustrophobia."

"Neither do you, Hobbes; you just haven't taken your pills today," Darien rolled his eyes.

Bobby pulled out of his partner's grip, irritably shrugging his blazer back into shape. "Don't say that. You don't know _nothin'_ about that, Fawkes. That's total crap, and you _know_ it is."

Darien sighed, and Claire silently sighed with him, relieved with the broken tension and return to normality. The taller man threw himself against the floor opposite Claire, bracing his back against the wall and hands wrapped around his legs. He was almost resting his chin on his knees. Claire tried to bite back a smile.

He caught the smirk on her face and frowned in confusion. "What?" Then he seemed to realize, and he glared and flushed, and her smirk blossomed into a wide, crooked grin.

"I'm sorry," she told him, "but you look so silly."

"Silly, sure, silly," Bobby grumbled from somewhere above them, and Claire craned her neck to look up at him. It was his turn to pace frenetically, and Claire let her head gently fall back against the lift wall, her eyes falling shut. She didn't want to watch the tension escalate again; it was bad enough feeling it crawl along her skin. "This entire frigging situation is _silly_, yet here we are, screwed and screwing around in a fricking—"

"Hobbes," Darien's voice cut across sharply, "give it a rest."

"Leave me alone, _Fawkes_, you don't know nothin'—"

"Oh, for pity's sake!" Claire straightened, opening her eyes, and glared at both of them. "Would you _both_ shut up?!" She slumped back again. "I honestly don't know how the pair of you get anything done if you squabble like this all the time…"

Bobby scratched at the back of his neck and tried to school his expression. "Sorry, Claire," he murmured, and the hand strayed from his neck to his cheek, a classic Bobby Hobbes fidget. Claire smiled wanly and wondered when she'd come to know his body language so well.

She felt a gentle tap against her thigh and looked back down at Darien, startled. His legs were sprawled across the elevator now, on both sides of her. She drew up her own legs, hugging them with her arms, feeling strangely hemmed in.

"Sorry, Claire," he said, and he was looking at her directly and she wished he wouldn't do that.

She looked down at her knees and was glad she'd worn trousers today. "That's alright," she said quietly.

"What, it's okay for him but not for me? Is it? Claire—"

"It's al_right_, Bobby," Claire sighed and looked up at the older agent. He stared back at her, and she couldn't read his expression at all now, and perhaps she didn't understand his body language as well as she'd thought. She looked down again quickly.

Another gentle tap on her thigh, and she jumped a little. She looked up at Darien unwillingly. "You okay?" He looked and sounded concerned, quiet firm voice again, and now she wished Bobby and he were still squabbling so they'd leave her alone.

"Yeah, Claire." Hobbes dropped down onto his knees next to her and rested a careful hand on her shoulder. She turned her head quickly to look at him, and she wasn't used to being this close to Bobby, almost nose to nose, his deep brown eyes looking worried.

She pressed her back into the wall, trying to escape them both. "Of course," she said, overly loud. "I'm fine," she added, moderating her voice. "I…I don't handle confined spaces very well either."

_Certainly_ not with you two, she didn't add aloud. She was good at suppressing information, after all. Usually. Not always with these two. That was part of the problem.

Bobby squeezed her shoulder briefly and sat back, forming a triangle with them. Claire breathed out a quick, silent breath again and glanced up, accidentally catching Darien's eye. He was still watching her. He seemed to have caught her relief, too, because he gave her a tiny, understanding smile with a hint of sympathy that she didn't like. His left foot, the one mostly hidden from Bobby's view, was still pressed against her side. She tried not to fidget.

"Now what," she said, because the heavy silence was unbearable.

"We wait," Darien said. His chin was tipped up now, eyes closed, and he looked perfectly and utterly relaxed. Claire envied him.

"Yeah," Bobby grumbled. "We wait until somebody notices this elevator isn't working, and _then_ we wait some more until the Fatman can bring himself to call in a repairman."

"Oh, God," Claire sighed under her breath as Fawkes simultaneously groaned, "Aw, _crap_."

"See? I _told_ you this sucks." Bobby sounded sado-masochistically pleased. Darien cracked open an eye to give his partner a despairing look, and Claire so desperately wanted to giggle at them both that she had to bite her lip to control herself.

"So," Darien said, dropping his head back to its former position. "What do we do while we wait? Play I-Spy?" Sarcasm dripped off every word.

"Sing Ninety-Nine Bottles," Bobby retorted, and Claire watched Darien's entire face crease into an unwilling but appreciative grin. One of his insanely long legs reached out and kicked Bobby in the knee. Bobby companiably swiped at the leg as it went back to resting unsettlingly near Claire's leg.

Claire closed her eyes, quickly.

"Well, Keep?" she heard Darien's voice ask. "You got any ideas of what we could do to wile away the many boring hours stretching ahead of us?"

Claire had ideas. Lots and lots of ideas. There was no way in hell she was going to share any of them. "No, sorry," she heard her own voice say with just the right tinge of mocking regretfulness, "fresh out of possibilities."

A pause in the conversation, and Claire concentrated on regulating her breath and heart rates. If only it were that simple.

"I got an idea," Darien said suddenly. Claire heard feet scraping against the floor and before she could open her eyes Darien was giving her a light kiss on the mouth.

She gasped, which just gave him more access to her mouth, and she heard Bobby yelling. She opened her eyes in time to see Bobby grab Darien's arm and shoulder and bodily push him away from her.

Darien landed sprawled back against the other wall again, and Claire stared at him, pushing herself up flat against her own wall but not having the strength to stand up, scream, pound her fists against the elevator doors. Bobby was holding his partner against the wall, and she could feel his rage without having to see the set of his back under his blazer or even the look on his face. Darien wasn't fighting him, and there was no cruel, mocking grin on his face; he was looking over Bobby's shoulder at her, and she couldn't understand his expression.

"Check his tattoo, Bobby," and Claire berated herself for the shaky tone of voice. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as quickly as she could, and almost missed Darien slumping over, his eyes closing.

Bobby almost ripped Darien's sleeve off as he twisted his partner's arm around to look at the wrist. "Ow!" Darien yelped and winced, tensing up again. "Watch it, Hobbes!"

"Only four segments red, Claire," Bobby said, and all she could see of him was his back. He was looking at his partner, though; Claire could tell because Darien was staring back at him just as fixedly.

"Bloody hell," Claire groaned to herself. Bobby twisted around, letting go of his partner to look at her, and surely that awkward position was killer on his knees and back muscles.

"Are you okay, Claire?" His voice was gentle and solicitous, and Claire's eyes widened when she saw Darien slide a hand up Bobby's back and rest it ever so lightly on the back of Bobby's neck. When Bobby tried to shrug him off, irritably, his hand just immediately went back to the same place.

"Are you okay, Claire?" Bobby repeated, voice and eyes insisting that she look at him, not at his partner, not at what his partner was doing.

"I…" She was going to say _I'm fine_, but the patently false phrase died somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

Hobbes twisted back around, conveniently making Darien's hand drop away, and shoved at his partner's chest, even though Darien had nowhere to go. "What the hell was that, Fawkes?" he yelled. "You're not even quicksilver mad!"

"It's something to do," Darien shrugged, and his relaxation was a little too elaborate to approach real.

"You don't _do_ that, Fawkes!" Claire was rather shocked at the angry, desperate yelling. "That's not cool, partner, that is the most _uncool_ thing you have done in a very long time!"

"Bobby." Claire couldn't bear that raw emotion in so confined a space; she sat forward and put a hand on the back of his shoulder, and in some obscure portion of her mind wondered anew at the actual perverse roominess of this building's elevators. "Bobby, it's alright, honestly, it's nothing to worry about—"

Bobby somehow managed to turn his entire body, and he was practically sitting in Darien's lap as he stared at Claire. "It is _not_ alright, Claire!" He almost sounded hysterical. "He just _kissed_ you!"

Claire stared at him and didn't know what to do.

Darien raised his hands, placed them on Bobby's back, and _pushed_.

"Oof." Claire was pressed back into the wall as Bobby toppled onto her. There was a frozen moment, where they both simply breathed, and then he scrambled back, away from both her and Darien.

"Sorry, Bobby," Darien said quietly.

"Darien, you _bastard_," Bobby panted. Claire didn't know where to look or what to do, so she sat there and shivered.

"See, Claire," Darien was saying, and she tried to focus on his voice because he was talking to her, but it was a bit difficult to concentrate at the moment, "see, Bobby kinda likes you. Only he has this thing about fishing off the company pier."

"You didn't have to _kiss_ her," Bobby spat.

"Hey," Darien's voice was soft, and Claire watched wide-eyed as he crawled across the short space and put an arm around Bobby's shoulders. "I was just trying to come up with something for us to do while we waited." He was whispering into Bobby's ear, nice and soft and intimate, and Claire started shivering again.

"Bobby?" Her voice was a little higher-pitched than she would have wished, and she coughed to clear her throat. "Are you _sure_ there were only four red segments?"

Darien laughed bitterly and slumped back next to Bobby, his arm still around Bobby's shoulders. "Right, sorry. I forgot. I do anything even remotely 'weird' and it must be because I'm quicksilver mad. Silly me."

"Darien…"

"Yeah, Keep?" His eyes were totally guileless, and she could have slapped him. Slashed her nails across his chest.

Focus, Claire.

"You don't know what you're doing," Hobbes muttered, distracting the other two, and he shrugged out of Darien's grasp, standing up.

"Bobby?" Claire looked up at him.

"Hobbes?" Darien sounded worried, too, as he looked up at his partner.

Bobby looked between them, and there was enough of some vibe building in the elevator that Claire was ready to get up herself and start pounding fists against the doors and screaming bloody murder. She _liked_ Darien and Bobby. They amused her with their adolescent banter, when they didn't irritate her with their juvenile arguing. She _liked_ them. They weren't supposed to unnerve her so much.

Now Darien was pulling himself up, distracting her from her thoughts again. She probably would have been grateful for this, but he was facing Bobby and staring at him, and she couldn't read either of them _again_, and now he was wrapping a hand around the back of Bobby's neck again as he ducked carefully forward and kissed Bobby lightly on the mouth.

Claire gaped, and maybe Bobby gasped too because she could see the kiss deepening, but then Bobby wrapped an arm around Darien's waist, and _oh shit_.

"Stop!" Claire yelled.

They both pulled back, Bobby a little faster than Darien. Bobby definitely didn't know where to look. Darien awkwardly ran a hand through his hair, fluffing it up even more ridiculously.

Claire reminded herself fiercely that a person could not die of sexual tension, and the thought unreasonably made her want to laugh.

"This is absurd," she said aloud.

Darien sighed deeply. "Yeah," he said, and leant against the wall, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets. "But we're gonna get awfully bored."

Sometimes, Claire could not believe the sheer—the sheer _insanity_ of Darien Fawkes, even when technically, supposedly, not mad. "If we don't asphyxiate from lack of air," she retorted.

"It'd be a nice way to go," Bobby piped up, and failed to repress a snicker. Darien started laughing with him.

"That's very true," Darien said, nodding and grinning, and Bobby elbowed him, outright guffawing at his own joke. Claire wanted to smack them both.

"You're both _mad_," she snapped and stood up because she was sick and tired of getting a crick in her neck, and her arse was falling asleep. "I'm sure you've both been told that numerous times, but it bears repeating."

"Aw, Claire…"

"C'mon, Keep…"

She glared at them both. "If you don't both start behaving this _instant_, I really will start beating this door down and screaming bloody murder," she threatened. She was feeling a trifle breathless.

Bobby and Darien looked at each other. "I think the Keeper needs to relax a little," Darien said aloud, speculatively, and Claire just _knew_ they were silently communicating something else as well, "don't you?"

"She's definitely sounding a little stressed," Bobby agreed smoothly.

Claire's heart rate shot up to something probably unhealthy in the long run. "What are you two—" she started, and then Bobby slid around behind her while Darien stepped up to her, as if they'd always had this move coordinated.

"Oh god—" she started, and she didn't know where to move. Bobby was lifting her hair so he could kiss the side of her neck. She automatically craned her neck, giving him more access, and before she could think and react and _stop this_, Darien had taken her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist.

Her knees were feeling a little wobbly.

"Not _fair_—" she ground out and glared up at Darien since he was the one who happened to be standing in front of her. He grinned down at her, wryly, almost sadly, and let go of her hand.

"I dunno," he said, "I think you're the lucky one." He leant forward to kiss her again, biting very, very gently at her bottom lip and that was _really_ unfair. She couldn't even wrap her arms around him. Bobby would have to stop if she did.

Speaking of Bobby…he'd stopped.

"Fawkes," he growled in the back of his throat, and inserted himself between the pair of them. He glared up at his partner, then turned around somehow—really, he was far more flexible and twisty than Claire had ever given him credit for, and she just _knew_ she had a silly grin glazed onto her face—and looked at Claire for a long, thoughtful moment, wiping the silly grin thankfully off Claire's face even as the rather pleasant bodily sensations she'd been experiencing drained away into something cold and worried.

"Bobby—" she started, but he placed a finger over her lips, silencing her. She looked up over him at Darien, and didn't like the look on Darien's pensive face either.

"Bobby, what's go—" she started again, and this time he stopped her with his lips.

She didn't gasp this time, but she immediately let him in. By this point, she'd decided there was no way in hell of going back and they really _would_ get bored, or she would burst, and neither was a very interesting or useful outcome.

His hands were in her hair, and her hands were on his chest, playing with his buttons. She could feel a strange tug, Bobby's hands sliding out of her hair, and opened her eyes to see Darien pulling Bobby's blazer off. Bobby's hands immediately went back to her cheek, her chin, her hair (he really did seem to have a fascination for her hair), and her fingers almost of their own accord undid his top two buttons. Her eyes strayed again, and Darien was staring at her, with that intense look again, and she couldn't break eye contact and she _wished_—

Bobby growled low in the back of his throat, and nipped at her bottom lip, thankfully dragging her attention back to him. _What the hell are we doing_, she thought, even as her fingers idly undid another button on Bobby's shirt, and she felt a moan vibrate through Bobby and wondered what the hell Darien was doing back there.

And then the elevator groaned, and shifted, and Claire stumbled back against the wall with Bobby falling against her and Darien catching his balance with a hand on the side wall, another on Bobby's back and _ohmygod what the hell were we thinking_, Claire thought, and she pushed Bobby away to fix her blouse.

"Damn timing," Darien muttered as he handed his partner back his blazer, and Bobby grunted an agreement as he shrugged back into the coat, and Claire couldn't look at _either_ of them.

The elevator groaned again and grudgingly started moving toward the second floor. "We do _not_," Claire said through gritted teeth, stepping up to the door, "mention this to anyone."

"Of course not," Darien said solemnly, on one side of her.

"Absolutely not," Bobby added on the other.

"Good." Claire ran a hand through her hair, finger-combing it efficiently into order. "Just so we're all clear on the matter."

The elevator stopped.

"Wanna get a drink tonight?" Bobby asked quietly.

"Absolutely," Darien answered, just as softly.

Claire looked from one man to the other as the doors slid open, and then she faced forward again.

"Yes," she said.


End file.
